Fermented soybean paste (Doenjang-jjigae) is made with vegetables, tofu, and fermented soybean paste (doenjang). It’s Koreans’ everyday house food. We eat it with other side dishes and rice, but sometimes, especially in the southern part of Korea where I’m from, we eat this stew with barley rice, vegetable salad (Geotjeori), and hot pepper paste all mixed together as bibimbap. This is the style I’m going to teach you to make today.
Ingredients for Fermented soybean paste stew (Doenjang-jjigae)
- 1 medium size potato (about 1 cup’s worth), peeled and cut into ½ inch cubes
- 1 cup worth of zucchini or squash, cut into ½ inch cubes
- 1 cup worth onion, cut into ½ inch cubes
- 5 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 green chili pepper, chopped
- 7 dried anchovies, with the heads and intestines removed, chopped
- 2½ cups water
- 1 stalk of green onion, chopped
- 150 grams of tofu, cut into ½ inch cubes
- 5 tbs of fermented soy bean paste (doenjang)
- 4 large shrimp, peeled, deveined, and chopped
Ingredients for Korean style mixed green salad (Geotjeori)
- 5 to 6 cups of washed mixed greens (or just lettuce)
- 1 cucumber, sliced thinly
- 1 green onion
- 1 clove of garlic
- 3 tbs soy sauce
- 1 tbs of Korean hot pepper flakes (gochugaru)
- 1 ts sugar
- ½ tbs toasted sesame seeds
- 1 tbs of toasted sesame oil
Directions
Make doenjang-jjigae
- Prepare an earthenware pot. Add potato, onion, garlic, zucchini, green chili pepper, shrimp, and dried anchovies.
- Add the water, just enough to cover everything.
- When it starts boiling add the fermented bean paste, stir the stew, and keep cooking for another 15 to 20 minutes. In the meantime you can make your geotjeori. If you don’t want the mixed salad, then you can finish the doenjang-jjigae (see below) and serve with rice and side dishes.
Make geotjeori
- Add the mixed greens and cucumber to a bowl.
- Make the sauce by mixing the soy sauce, hot pepper flakes, sugar, sesame seeds and toasted sesame oil.
- Mix the vegetables with the sauce. Transfer the salad to a glass bowl or a big plate to serve.
Finish the doenjang-jjigae
- Add tofu and cook another 5 minutes, occasionally stirring the boiling stew with a spoon.
- Add green onion over top.
*tip: to check whether or not the ingredients are cooked, taste the potato.
Put it all together
- In a big bowl, place your rice first, then a scoop of doenjang-jjigae, and then some geotjeori. Mix in some hot pepper paste and toasted sesame oil. Wow, it’ll be delicious! : )
Maangchi's Amazon picks for this recipe
It's always best to buy Korean items at your local Korean grocery store, but I know that's not always possible so I chose these products on Amazon that are good quality. See more about how these items were chosen.
melon,
Your line “I’m confident in making Korean food…” makes me happy this morning!
Yuna,
no, you don’t have to use barley if you don’t like it or if it’s not available.
But barley rice really goes with this stew (doenjang jjigae).
i just love yur recipes!!
by the way, when u make rice, do u have to put barely?
Maangchi,
I made this last night for dinner after school. My husband made seafood pajun. We had a GREAT dinner! Thank you for taking the time to make these cooking videos…I am confident in making Korean food, as long as I have internet access ^__^
God bless u!
kathleen,
Your bf is lucky to have you! I am sure he will love your food.
I’m so glad I found this recipe!!
I couldn’t decide between making Japanese Curry or 된장찌개(Spelling?)
I was just putting veggies in a pot and decided to look it up.
I was saved in the nick of time and was able to make my boyfriends favourite stew/soup.
But the thing is, I used snow peas, corn and chicken because originally I was going to make curry.
Thank you so much!!
(btw – My boyfriend is Korean)
Anonymous,
I don’t think so. Some people make stock using beef or chicken. I like dried anchovy stock better
Are anchovies neccessary for all korean stews or soups?
Femke from Holland,
wow, since 2001, korean food has been your favorite!
It sounds like you used to travel everywhere!
If you can’t find Asian chives, replace it with green onions. That’s what I’m doing. I made “stuffed cucumber kimchi(oisobagi)”yesterday with green onions. It is still delicious.
Let me know how your korean cooking turns out later.
Maya,
I visited your site and I’m very happy to read it.
Thank you very much for your encouraging post about me! ooh~ my self-esteem goes up and up thanks to you! lol
PS- check out my blog :-) http://restaurantofthemonth.wordpress.com/
Maangchi, I blogged about you today. Thanks for all your great recipes. I’ll be making this one tonight ;-)Keep up the wonderful work!
Dear Maangchi,
I have been watching your cooking videos for quite some time now, but never left a message. I thought it was about time now.
I just want to say that I LOVE your videos, the recipes, the food!!!!!
Korean food has been my favorite ever since I first ate it (that was in 2001). I have been to Korea and I lived in China for some years. I always went to the Korean restaurants!!! Hahaha.
I am from Holland and here are only very few Korean restaurants, so I have to cook myself! But cooking is a great hobby of mine, so no problem at all.
Only problem: no kimchi here…and also Asian chives are hard to find. Sometimes when I go to Amsterdam, I buy a lot of Korean stuff to keep in stock!
OK, thank you and now I’m off to the Asian supermarket for ingredients!
Femke
Fred,
oh, some people use beef in doenjangjjigae, but I have never heard that pork is used. Yes, you can use the anchovy flavor stock powder. Maybe 1 tbs?
Hi Maangchi, Thanks so much for creating this website. For the doenjang jjigae, is it fine to substitute the shrimp and anchovies with pork?
Also, I couldn’t find dried anchovies but my friend gave me an Instant Soup Stock Powder (Anchovy flavor). Is that okay and how much should I put in?
Thanks,
Fred
Rayfil Wong,
Yayee, you save your money which means you make money! : )
Great show. I like that you explains things very well and in details. Living in San Francisco, the Korean food is expense averaging $20 per person.
You can really save us some money.
hellaOAKLAND,
Thanks, yes, several dried anchovies make the doenjang jjigae very tasty. I can’t make doenjang jjigae without dried anchovies. : )
Hi Maangchi! I just watched your video and now I know why the doenjang jjigae I made earlier today wasn’t so great…I forgot anchovies! (or more like I didn’t have them). Anyway, just wanted to let u know that I found your site through my flickr stats. I saw that someone had a left a link on your comment area about my Korean school lunches. I’m glad I found your page!I’ve been back several times and will be returning again. I can’t wait to make doenjang jjigae again but with anchovies. Oh, thanks for sharing the salad recipe. I LOVE that salad dressing! can’t wait to make that too! Thanks for the video(s)! and keep up with the good work with your site.
=)
poohbear,
Yes, you can use beef. Chop it and use it instead of dried anchovies.
hi, ive never seen doenjang jjigae eaten like that over rice & salad on top~! interesting…! can this be made with beef? how would i do it? just put in raw beef to the pot or cook it seperately? also, can gochujang be added to the soup too? thank you
Rachel,
You’re very welcome Rachel! Thank you very much!
Hello Maangchi!
Thank you for your amazing recipes and videos!
My boyfriend and I love watching your videos.
Thanks for sharing this great Korean food!
rona,
you are craving for this jjigae? Good! : )
Cynthia lee,
oh, you added a little bit of hot pepper paste? It’s a brilliant idea! I sometimes do the same thing.
Thank you!
Maangchi 언니~
된장찌개 맛있게 끓이는 비결을 가르쳐 주셔서 정말 감사합니다!
Thank you so much for sharing this delicious recipe. I just made it for dinner and my family loved it!
I made a slight variation to your recipe by adding 1/2 tsp of 고추장 (gochujang) and some white button mushrooms to it.
I look forward to trying more of your recipes. Please continue to teach us how to make more delicious Korean dishes! ㅋㅋ
신시아
Hi it`s me again^^
I think i am pregnant^^ and i am craving for this daenjang chigae so i will cook it right away now!
Portugalbear,
I’m glad you found the important ingredients for this recipe. Yes, use regular potato. Let me know how it turns out.
Hi Maangchi,
I finally found the anchovies and the bean paste and i’m ready to try this dish. my question is the potato used here regular potato or sweet potato similar to the ones used jjajang?
Portugalbear,
Thank you for pointing out the wrong directed hyper link. I fixed it now. I should check out all ingredients photos later when I’m not busy. Thanks again!
Hi Maangchi, can you show us how the bean paste here look like. the link in your recipe shows a picture of the sesame oil
meileng,
haha,I hope your mission is possible as soon as possible!
Hi Maangchi, my blog add. is http://www.meilengloh.com. My next mission : to find Korean bean paste!:)
meileng,
Give me your blog address, please. I am going to post the address on my website. If the taste is good, it will be ok of course. Someday if you find Korean bean paste (doenjang), try it out. Thank you!
Hi Maangchi, just to let you know that I’ve posted the dubu deonjang chigae and gye ran jjim which I made some time ago on my blog. I made some adjustments to the dish; I added some dried shrimps with the dried anchovies to give it a deeper flavour and I also tried with dried anchovies only- both times the stew tasted good! :) Since I couldn’t find deonjang here, I substituted with chinese minced bean paste-will the taste be very different? My friends loved the dish, so thanks Maangchi for the lovely recipe! :)
Moon,
ooh whoo! Congratulation!
Hey maangchi!
I made the doenjang chigae a few days ago and had it for dinner with my boyfriend.
turned out fabulous! he was surprised at how well it turned out hehe :-)
thank u!
: ) Good luck with your making doenjang chigae tonight.